A Wrench in the Works
by Rosage
Summary: Aura resets the timeline. If only undoing tragedy were as simple as making a few repairs. Aura/Metis
1. Chapter 1: The Experiment

_A/N: I started this back in February for an f/f event, but I only now got around to uploading it. Hopefully it's still enjoyed. It contains full game spoilers, and standard trigger warnings for UR-1 apply: Death, Aura's abusiveness, etc. Thank you to Glitteringworlds and Queenlua for beta reading._

Aura completed the time machine a week before Simon's execution. It wasn't bad timing, though thanks to the machine, an extra week wouldn't have done much except snap some tension. Still, she wasted no time in running it. The robots wailed oil-based tears, begging her to bring them, but she displayed no sympathy as she told them she'd be with them in a happier time, one where Mommy Metis would be with them.

"Besides, I need you to operate the machine. I'd hate to get lost in the prehistoric age."

"Yes, yes, we'll guide you back to Mommy," they cried, twirling around her while she stalled in front of the rocket-shaped machine and traced its crescent moon knobs. As soon as she stepped through, these versions of Ponco and Clonco would be lost to her, and no matter how she'd avoided it, she was their mama. Given the choice between staying with their grief-molded models and joining their mother, however, there was no question. After giving the robots their final orders, she entered the machine and strapped herself in. The door slid shut, closing her off from a world she'd never revisit—if this worked.

She'd sent back and retrieved a bird, a test Simon would have ranted about, but this would be the first human time travel. It was monumental, but she wouldn't make it public for Director Cosmos to boast about his imaginary involvement in. The potential for failure carried only one fear: the chance that she'd search through space-time and still never find Metis. The possibility of dying didn't bother her. If it happened, well, there was only a week left.

For years she'd filled the holes in her heart with metal, but now its thumping drowned out the whir of the machine. She closed her eyes and waited.

xxxxxxx

When she woke, a blanket covered her—unusual, since she always kicked them off—and her pillow felt cool against her neck, though she'd finally started unscrewing her hair before falling into bed. Her first thought was that she'd been dreaming. She'd never built a time machine, never even dreamed of the idea before that night, and she'd be forever stuck in her wretched life without even a brother to scream at.

Intending to scream into her pillow, she rolled over, but her forehead collided with something hard. She cursed as she propped herself up, preparing to yell at whichever robot decided to spend the night, but when she opened her eyes, her voice died.

Metis lay there, her eyes wide, her hands shifting between covering her ears and holding the back of her head. Before Aura's mind could catch up, her palms pressed against Metis's ears.

"Sorry," she mouthed. "I forgot."

And she had forgotten—forgotten how soft Metis's skin was, how dark the rim around her eyes in the morning, how the hair on the side she slept on stood up. But she hadn't forgotten how to take care of her, or how her chest warmed when Metis rested her head against it.

She pulled Metis close and buried herself in her, breathing in her scent—a mix of tea and metal with soap—as if she could retake seven years of mourning with one embrace. Metis yawned, but Aura knew better than to think she wasn't alert.

"Your heartbeat is erratic," Metis said. Aura pressed a smile against her hair.

"It'll steady soon," she said.

xxxxxxx

Not wanting to leave their bedroom, Aura hated the moment Metis pulled away, but they had work to do. She spent the morning catching up on her past self's progress, shaking her head at outdated methods and fumbling due to assumptions about her equipment's models. She and Metis talked little, a fact that once wouldn't have bothered her. Unfortunately, slipping back into a natural rhythm proved difficult. She couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that Metis was _there_, despite easily reverting her routine: adjusting the lab temperature whenever she caught Metis shivering, brewing a cup of tea with her coffee, sneaking more glances at Metis than a schoolchild with a crush.

It didn't take long for frustration to emerge. She wanted to pull Metis aside and make up for lost time, but to Metis, there _was _no lost time, leaving her as quiet and distant as ever. Aura had forgotten exactly _how _quiet—several times she bumped into Metis due to not hearing her move behind her. Each time Metis scurried past like a mouse afraid to wake the cat.

That was another thing Aura forgot. They didn't touch much during the day, even though they were official and nobody but the robots was around. At the time, it felt necessary for professionals, but it all seemed like a pointless dance now.

When the buzzing in her head canceled out prudence, she smacked Clonco in response to his question about new parts. "I'm trying to _think, _you hunk of…"

Metis's horrified expression brought Aura back to the present—her past. She stood awkwardly, trying to remember how to control herself while Clonco wailed.

"I'm going to go check our budget," she muttered.

"Yes, do that," Metis said tightly, her expression softening as she knelt to comfort Clonco.

A foul mood hung over Aura while she stalked down the corridor. She thought she'd left all the bad things behind, though in hindsight that type of naivety belonged to the space program's youngest recruits. Either way, she couldn't become complacent. If she didn't save Metis, she'd have accomplished nothing except twisting the proverbial knife.

Before she could think further, her brother rounded the corner. The sight of Simon's face—unmarked, peaceful, framed by hair that only needed a slight trim—slammed her with almost maternal emotion. She pulled her expression into one as unaffected as possible, trying to remember how they'd interacted before he cut her out.

"Have you seen Athena?" he asked. The concern in his tone made her hand clench. "I fear the commotion from the launch preparations has overwhelmed her."

"No, I haven't seen the _princess…_" She pressed her lips together. Simon's eyes narrowed at her tone; thank goodness she'd always been abrasive, or that look might have been suspicion and not disapproval. "…since last night. Have you checked her room?"

"I'll do so." He moved to walk past but hesitated, scrunching his face as he stepped toward her. "Is something…amiss?"

Her heartbeat quickened. She fruitlessly commanded it to shush. "Like what?"

"Your face, it's…" He tilted his head. "Older?"

Of course he would notice_. _She was almost twice his age now, she realized as she swatted him; maybe those maternal feelings weren't too far off. "Didn't I ever teach you manners?"

"Funny, coming from you."

"Spare me, goody two-shoes." A seed of pain planted in her chest. The banter felt natural_, _like he hadn't spent years as the twisted samurai rather than her little teacher's pet.

"Seriously, though—you seem worn out," he said. "I know that this launch is…"

She tuned out his vague rant about she-didn't-know-what. The launch. The time she'd come from had been preparing for one, too. She wished she'd had the robots send her further back, so she'd have time to relax before…

No. She'd come back to prevent that. There'd be time for them to all be together later.

"Stop being a mother hen," she said, cutting him off just as he lowered his voice to curse the government. "You're my little brother. Act like it." She clapped a hand on his shoulder. "And get some damn sleep. Those bags…"

She stopped herself. "I can picture them forming already," she finished.

After parting ways, she located the nearest mirror with a frown. She'd looked young for someone in her late thirties, but maybe early thirties was a different matter. There was nothing to do but apply extra makeup and scare anyone else that commented.

Athena, as it turned out, was not in her room, a fact Aura learned when she returned to the lab with a pocketful of the mints Metis liked swiped from the front desk. The princess stood in front of Metis, who adjusted her headphones with her eyes trained on a screen.

"It's a chaotic couple of days," Metis was saying. "I need to ensure the headphones' output matches your emotional input."

"I don't _understand,_" Athena said, wriggling away from Metis's touch. "I want to go draw."

From the doorway, Aura's blood boiled. _I want, I want… _She'd already seen the outcome of Athena's ungrateful _wanting_. Awkwardness and consideration once made her keep her distance from the pair, but she wasn't letting Athena get her way again.

"Princess," she said, stepping forward. "Metis has your best interests in mind, so do what she says, all right?"

She kept the poison from her voice, but it was futile; Athena could hear, as her sudden stillness demonstrated. Oblivious to the source, Metis took advantage of it to finish the test before releasing Athena, who ran off.

With Metis's killer gone, Aura moved to continue her work before a hand on her elbow stopped her.

"Aura…may I speak with you?"

Metis's solemn tone made Aura uneasy. She breathed out before turning with a smile. "What is it?"

"Your aggression earlier…I know you're a brusque person, but this...it's not like you. Has something happened?"

Aura huffed in frustration. This would be easier if she wasn't dealing with a psychologist, a fact that caused strain in their relationship even before she had seven years of trauma to hide. Luckily, she was experienced at hiding it.

"You said yourself it's been chaotic," Aura said, shrugging. "It should even out in a few days."

"That's good to hear, because if that should happen again…"

"It won't," Aura said. "Believe me."

Metis studied her before tilting her face toward the corner. "I'm not the one you should be reassuring."

Clonco stood with his hands over his face. Half of her remorseful, half of her finding it a bother, Aura moved over to him and crouched.

"Sorry, H—Clonco. That's the last time I'll hit you, all right?"

Aura felt a twinge at the moment's significance, one that would be lost on Clonco. He vibrated. "My database says 'junk' means 'garbage.' Mama Aura, do you really think I'm garbage?"

Five taunts leapt to her mouth. She swallowed each of them and rolled her tongue as if tasting their bitterness. "No," she said, eying parts she could have constructed better, his smallness and general lack of presence. "I don't."

Shifting moods as immediately as the princess tended to, he waved his arms around with a smile. "Yay! Thank you, Mama Aura!"

Aura found herself returning his smile without having to think about it. As a robot, Clonco left much to be desired, but as her and Metis's child, he stirred a love she'd long forgotten.

Glancing at Metis, Aura found apparent approval. Relieved, she returned to her and dug the mints out of her pocket.

"Thought you deserved a treat after all your work," she said. Metis took them, her eyes wide with delight. _It doesn't take much, _Aura thought, fondly shaking her head.

In an instant, the tension in her chest snapped, threatening to yank her heart clear out. As automatically as a programmed robot she pulled Metis into an embrace, causing Metis to stiffen in her hold, which was more desperate than any of the brushes of fingers Aura once saw as a daytime treat.

"Aura…?"

Her name spoken in that voice melted all of her sharp edges. Metis was _here, _Metis was _alive_, it was_ Metis's _cheek that pressed against hers and Metis's hand that reached to touch her shoulder.

"I…I make mistakes sometimes," Aura said. "I'll do better from now on, all right?"

She stopped herself before she could get choked up. Metis looked bemused when Aura pulled away, smiling lightly at Metis before returning to her work. Her mind wasn't fully engaged, but her hands could sort out the logic of robotics even while the rest of her tingled from the energy of the warm body in the room.

xxxxxxx

Keeping Athena away from Metis was Aura's first priority. Unfortunately, beyond kidnapping or killing her, she couldn't separate mother and daughter permanently, and while she'd considered those options, she couldn't do them when Metis would mourn.

_But if it's a choice between her and Metis…_

No—she was a scientist, a problem solver. She'd find other solutions before it came to that.

First, to isolate Athena from Metis on the day of the launch. Aura spent launches on standby in case her technical expertise was needed, which is why she hadn't been in the lab. That would be fine—as long as Athena wasn't, either.

"It would be such an exciting experience," she told Athena, who sat on her bed clutching a toy robot Aura had made her. It was a simple model, more scrap than Clonco, but she still felt the urge to snatch it away. "How many children can say they've helped with an actual launch?"

Athena's fingers slid into her mouth. "'m different enough fr'm the other kids already." Aura yanked the fingers out; they should have cleared her of the habit years ago.

"This isn't like that," Aura said, forcing herself not to feel pity. She hadn't been the most 'normal' kid, either, but…at least she hadn't killed her mother. Crouching, she rested her chin in her hands. "I bet the others would be impressed. This launch is all over the news, after all."

"Is it?" Athena stared vacantly at her fingers, which she was wiping on the sheet. Aura withheld a sigh. Even before everything, she'd never been good at reaching Athena. Manipulating her proved trickier than controlling programming.

Before she could formulate a plan B, Athena looked up. "Why do you hate me?"

Caught off guard, Aura fixed a smile on her face. "Why would you ask that?"

Athena looked away—since she read moods through voices, she rarely maintained eye contact, causing her teachers to phone home about her social skills. _Who cares if she doesn't want to look at your dull faces all day, _had once been Aura's defensive response.

"I can hear it," Athena said, switching into a cross-legged position and bouncing her knees."You're usually unhappy around me, but since the other day you've wanted to hurt me."

Aura's smile dropped. Athena's tone didn't change, and Aura didn't know if she was apathetic or about to cry. How could she lie to someone who always heard the difference?

That's when the idea hit. This was the girl who believed robots were people, believed she could punish her mother and fix her again good as new. If anybody would believe Aura's story, it would be her.

Why not tell the truth?

Devilish delight sparked. How hurt would the princess be to learn that not only her mother, but also her precious knight were to die at her hands? She must have some conscience, after all, within all of that unforgivable ignorance.

Aura's wrists trembled under her chin. She took a breath, steadying herself as she stood. Hurting Athena wasn't her goal, not now.

"If I tell you something, will you promise to keep it between the two of us?"

"Yes," Athena said. "I'm better at secrets than Clonco."

A bug Aura had never managed to straighten out, even with years of punishment. She sat next to Athena and smoothed the sheets, a flower print set from Juniper Woods that clashed with the rocket-shaped bed Metis built.

"The truth is, I'm from the future." Aura didn't bother sweetening her voice; if Athena heard her tone and emotion match, perhaps she'd trust her more. "I've already lived through the next seven years. See?" She leaned close, causing Athena to jerk back, and took off her goggles. "The skin around my eyes is wrinkled, isn't it?"

Athena scrunched her face like Simon had. "So you're seven years older than you were a few days ago?" Her tone sounded perfectly matter of fact.

"Yes. And in all of that that time, I experienced a lot. I know many things you don't."

Athena winced; Aura's venom must have sounded as destructive as a computer virus. She twirled her ponytail around her hands. "And it made you hate me? Is that why you came back? To punish me?"

Aura laughed. "You're a sharp kid, but no. If all goes well, it won't come to that. Otherwise…" She shrugged before leaning in. "I came back, Athena Cykes, to stop you."

The princess looked the picture of innocent confusion. "Stop me? From what?"

Aura's fingers dug into the sheets. "You can't fool me," she snarled. "I told you, I've been through it. I know what you're planning tomorrow."

Athena covered her ears. "I don't know what you mean," she said, her voice quivering.

Aura laughed again, not bothering to soften its volume like she once would have. "Oh, I trust we understand each other. But now you know why I'm not letting you out of my sights."

Seeming to give up, Athena flopped onto her side so that she could pull the pillow around her ears. "So that's why you want me at the launch?"

"Smart girl. You will come with me, won't you?"

Athena nodded, squeezing her eyes shut. It was amazing how small she looked when Aura stood, peering down at her. She'd be so easy to break, yet she managed to destroy Aura's entire life.

Something in the setting—the glow-in the-dark stars on the wall, the nightstand Metis carved a moon into, or even the way Athena's fingers slipped back to her mouth—pulled Aura back seven years, when the scene would have given her maternal contentment. The echo of the feeling clashed with her hatred, giving her what she thought might be a taste of the mixed input Athena received on a daily basis.

She pressed her nails into her palm, breathing out. Though Athena wouldn't see it, she smirked as if to reset her programming.

"It's settled, then. And remember—breathe a word of this to anyone, and you'll be sorry. _Especially _Metis. Do you understand?"

Athena removed her fingers long enough to pinch her lips in agreement. On the way out, Aura caught sight of a painting on the door, one of Ponco and Clonco flying alongside little Taka. Her smirk disappeared.

"You'll never have my forgiveness," she said in a low voice. "But if you want my trust, you'll have to earn it."

Before waiting for a response, she left. Her satisfaction evaporated quickly, leaving her with dread. It wouldn't be so easy as one round of intimidation, especially now that she'd handed Athena a card to play. Now she had to steel herself to keep the princess from the throne at all costs.


	2. Chapter 2: False Hypothesis

Having lain awake all night staring at Metis while her stomach tied into knots, Aura brewed extra black coffee and put the rice cooker on before downing two helpings of each. As she snuck in robots upgrades ahead of launch preparations, she watched to make sure Metis, who was verging on some psychological breakthrough, ate. Despite the rest of the center's bustling and the looming threat, the morning passed with little but the clack of Metis's keyboard and the robots rushing in and out.

Too soon, the time came for Aura to go. Leaving Metis brought Aura back to the day of her death, when she had not even kissed Metis goodbye, just called a few requests for part orders over her shoulder. Though this wouldn't be their last meeting, Aura refused to repeat the mistake, bending down to press her lips against Metis's cheek. "I'll be back soon," she murmured.

"Godspeed," Metis said, her attention on her screen.

Aura hesitated—the gesture was too fleeting, too chaste, for her tension, but it was the most they'd have typically done, and Metis shared none of Aura's apprehension. With no excuse to linger, Aura left, running her hand over Ponco's head on the way out to soothe herself.

As she made her way down the hall, a thread of doubt stitched itself into her. Was she not doing enough? Should she remove Metis from the space center, whether against her will or not?

She forced herself to remain rational. There was no reason for the _lab _to be dangerous, and she didn't plan to damage Metis's opinion of her. As long as she kept Athena away, everything would be fine.

When Aura arrived at the launch site, she found Athena seated next to Clonco, who Aura had enlisted to watch her. He'd followed her orders especially earnestly since the other day to regain her approval, as Metis had explained in a tight voice, and Aura trusted him to tell her if Athena ran off. Athena didn't, staying by the robot's side like a shadow while everyone buzzed around.

Though the lead up to the launch involved no small amount of fanfare, the employees kept laser focus on their tasks. Aura caught a whiff of sweat and wrinkled her nose; few human scents appealed to her.

Things soon went awry. Being the sole person to know the HAT-1 would break down, Aura thoroughly checked the equipment the evening before, but despite finding no malfunctions, an explosion rocked the ship.

Employees panicked, as did Starbuck himself. Aura paid him little heed; she hadn't come back to prevent his PTSD, and at least he'd have a psychologist. As the least caught off guard, she barked orders to keep the employees on task until Starbuck landed to a chorus of cheers.

Aura didn't join in. Immediately she turned toward Athena, her heart nearly stopping when she saw that the princess had disappeared.

A moment later, however, she found her crouching behind Clonco, tears streaming down her face while the robot's hands covered her ears. Without moving them, Clonco swiveled his head.

"Mama Aura, everyone's emotions are overwhelming her!"

"I can see that. Did you watch her the whole time?"

"Yes! Clonco took good care of Athena."

He probably wanted praise, but Aura had long-since fallen out of the habit of delivering it. Once she'd confirmed that Athena hadn't left, her anxiety lessened, though her heart continued pounding.

"I'm going to tell Metis what happened. Don't take your eyes off the princess for a second, understand?"

Athena choked out a sob, cringing as if at the sound. "Mama Aura," Clonco said, "Athena needs to get away from—"

"So take her to her room," Aura said with a wave of her hand, ignoring the employees who spoke to her as she ran out.

While she rode the elevator she felt weightless, her stomach leaping up faster than the rest of her. She ordered it to settle. She'd isolated Athena; Metis was safe.

Her feet carried her to the lab. The second she threw open the door, she saw the empty chair and thought she'd succeeded. A moment later, however, she caught sight of the scene below the window and felt a wrench slam her gut.

Simon knelt on the floor, cradling Metis's body. Blood covered the front of both of their outfits, and but for his trembling hold, Metis lay completely limp. Aura might as well have been on the moon for how thin the air seemed.

Aura wasn't aware of her legs moving until she dropped beside them, cupping Metis's face. The stench of blood churned her stomach—she'd been first in line for biology dissections, but this was _Metis, _and for someone used to thinking of innards as wires, seeing the raw humanity spill from her beloved made her toes curl.

She focused instead on Metis's face. While Metis had presented herself as composed, Aura always saw the worry wrinkling her brow; now, she looked truly tranquil. Aura's glove prevented her from touching Metis's skin, but she couldn't tear her hand away long enough to take it off. How could this have happened? Inventing a way to warp time, confronting the princess, keeping her away…none of it had done a thing. Even the HAT-1 Miracle repeated itself. She slapped her knee with her free hand and laughed. She was useless. A scientist who couldn't fix anything.

Tears had dripped onto Metis's kimono before Aura realized she was crying; the stain's size made her realize Simon was crying, too.

That reduced her to pity, because he hadn't _known, _hadn't been through this already. She held him, their bodies sandwiching Metis as if they could stop her from going cold. Aura's fingers dug into Simon's back while he wept on her shoulder, a reversal of the time when she hadn't expected it and he'd closed himself off. He'd only kept up the pretense of the strong knight for the princess's sake, it seemed.

The princess. Where was she? Aura swiveled her head, but the three of them were alone. Though it was impossible Athena could have beaten her here, Aura stood on shaky legs and searched the room, sweeping a box of nails off a desk in frustration. At the clatter, Simon looked up.

"We can't disturb the crime scene," he said, his voice maddeningly calm despite its hoarseness.

Aura told him in uncensored terms exactly whatshe thought of his law enforcement procedures while she dug out the rolling case and threw it open. It was empty.

"Where are you hiding her?"

"Whom do you mean?"

Aura slammed her hand against the wall, keeping it there for stability. "Don't give me that innocent look! The princess. Where did you chariot her off to?" Deep down, she knew the answer, but she couldn't accept that this could happen, that she'd been wrong for seven years.

Simon's eyes narrowed. "You think I kidnapped Dr. Cykes' child? Are you accusing me, of, of…" He cast his gaze down to the body in his arms. "Of _this_?"

The irony made Aura howl with laughter. She didn't stop until she was doubled over the workbench, retching into a bucket of metal parts. While she rinsed her mouth with a cup of now-cold coffee, she heard Simon calling the authorities.

"You didn't do that earlier?" she asked, wiping her face with a rag as she turned toward him. He pressed his lips together and jerked his head toward the body he'd laid on the ground. Aura rolled her eyes; of course Metis's samurai had put guarding her before his government duties.

They returned to kneeling beside Metis until the police came. It didn't take long, given all the officers that for some reason had come to gawk at the launch. Simon rubbed his thumb absently across Aura's cheek—"oil on that rag," he said, to which she muttered _mother hen_—before they stood to meet the employee who arrived first.

Before the day had ended, the police arrested Simon. Aura was strangely hollow as they took him away, even as she joined him in protest. "I shan't let you allow her real killer to slip into the shadows," he said, and Aura gave every officer nearby a less formal blow-by-blow about corruption within the system, but it was all, as Simon would have said, for naught.

Aura's numbness didn't recede until she opened the door to the princess's room and found her sitting at her desk, drawing a robot. A scream tore itself from Aura's throat, causing Athena to cover her ears as she looked up, her eyes wide with innocent confusion.

xxxxxxx

As soon as the police questioned her, Aura shut herself in her room and lay on their bed, pummeling the floor beside the pillow she'd recently been wonderstruck to find Metis's hair splayed across. Losing Metis a second time didn't hurt less. On the contrary, being reunited with her tore down the walls Aura had built around her heart, leaving it exposed for grief to drill further holes.

She didn't even have anywhere to direct her feelings. She'd seen for herself that Athena couldn't have murdered Metis, and even without protecting her, Simon was arrested. The gap between his discovering the body and calling the authorities was "suspicious," apparently, a fact that made Aura slap the detention center table from laughter. If only he'd been a prosecutor long enough for them to know his eccentricities.

So Aura was left with nothing. No heart, no brother, and no witch to hang. Only herself to blame and two lives of misery.

xxxxxxx

Aura didn't learn until Simon's trial that his prints were on the katana, apparently—as he said with clear embarrassment—because he'd once snuck into the lab to attempt swordplay. Aura could only imagine the lecture that had earned him; she grinned at the thought. The prosecution seemed less amused, twisting Simon's desire into proof of his 'violent nature,' a claim that made Aura guffaw until the bailiff told her to pipe down.

Again the princess testified. _He didn't kill her. His heart is screaming that he didn't kill her. _Aura averted her eyes from the people shaking their heads in the gallery.

Simon, for his part, looked battered; his eyes contained no resolve, only defeat. He didn't have the strength to fight without anyone to protect, Aura realized. She fought for both of them, but she could do little except testify about his devotion to Metis and scream at the prosecutor.

The sentence was death. Aura only laughed. She wasn't planning on sticking around long enough to see it carried out.

xxxxxxx

When Aura reset the timeline, she'd lost all ability to contact the original robots. Perhaps the other universe still existed, or perhaps only one did and she'd warped it irretrievably. Either way, it wasn't a life she cared to return to.

She tried to avoid abusing the robots, but without Athena to hate, Aura fell back into old habits. Everything in this world would be gone soon, anyway. Knowing that, she didn't bother upgrading the robots, maintaining relationships, or doing any work that wasn't necessary to keep the space center funding her secret project.

Replicating the time machine took less time now that she knew the formula. In three years, she'd strapped herself in and ordered the robots to start it up again. She had none of the anxious anticipation of the first round. She only wanted to lie beside Metis again so that she could finally get some rest.

xxxxxxx

This time, Aura was more aware when she woke. Managing not to whack Metis, she propped herself up, taking a moment to stare. Even in the dim light, the shape of Metis under the blankets and her dark hair against the pillow soothed Aura with the knowledge that at least one thing in the world was right.

When Metis stirred, Aura reached to cup her cheek as she had three years before, this time with no glove in the way of her warmth. Metis started, then lay back down against the pillow with a sigh while Aura stroked her face.

"Are the robots out of sleep mode?"

"I haven't checked yet," Aura murmured, running her thumb along Metis's jaw. She didn't dare break contact; once they turned on the lights, even this open a gesture would cease. Too soon, however, Metis rose, and not being eager to lay in an empty bed, Aura followed.

Metis brushed her hair while Aura washed, running the water over her hands for a minute to cleanse herself of the blood on them. She snuck glances at Metis, splashing her face in between until the cold grounded her in the present.

They spoke little as they began work. Having Metis back healed some of the rot festering in Aura, but it didn't feel dream-like this time; if anything, the idea that Aura could ever not find her way back to Metis's side seemed impossible. Though in less of a daze than she'd been before, she took breaks to watch Metis analyze charts and jot notes. A meticulous worker, she kept her station more organized than Aura cared to keep her own. At times Aura teased Metis about corrupting her brother with finicky sensibilities, but she'd always admired Metis's methodology.

Simon joined them for dinner before his lesson with Metis, though as usual it started over their sushi. Not sharing their interest in psychology, Aura remained quiet, alternating between glancing at Athena and being unable to look at her. Athena looked at her curiously, and Aura kept her silence, refusing to let Athena hear the web of guilt and frustration in her heart. The girl didn't remember Aura's confession, but Aura got the sense that Athena could uncover any secret, and the knowledge that she'd mistreated Metis's princess on false grounds was something she couldn't face until this was over.

While they finished their tea, Metis and Simon avidly conversed about overrated death theorists. Aura rested her chin in her hand and rolled her eyes, but truth be told, seven years venting aggression and three more in isolation put her out of touch with her family. She'd never been as awkward as Simon, but she was starting to empathize with his glazed looks during Blackquill family reunions.

She tried not to dwell on it. Saving Metis was her first priority. She could repair relations afterward.

To that end, she spent the time after dinner planning. In the past three years she'd at least come to terms with the fact that keeping Athena away from Metis wouldn't save her. If Simon was innocent—and he was, there was no point doubting that, even if it went against her dislike of bias—that left Aura with no suspects. More than once she'd considered locking Metis away where nobody could harm her. The urge renewed itself; she banged the pot she was washing against the sink. Strangers could have been another story, but she wasn't far gone enough to kidnap her partner, at least not when other options remained.

The first thing she did upon returning to the lab was check its security measures, after which she instructed the robots to watch Metis. While Metis was busy, Aura reprogrammed the command that didn't let them eavesdrop, creating little spies to keep an eye on anyone suspicious.

The tactic Aura used with Athena seemed like it should be effective—she'd simply chosen the wrong target. She considered staying with Metis in the lab, but after seeing her dead body there twice, she wanted to take Metis as far away as possible. Unfortunately, that wasn't very far, but to Aura's relief, Metis agreed to accompany her to the launch.

Aura checked the rocket repeatedly, but it was all in order. It seemed likely someone tampered with it at the last minute, a fact that made the hair on the back of Aura's neck stand up. So a potential criminal had dropped themselves into her lap. She discussed it with the higher-ups, but she could only be vague. She received evasive responses and walked away with her nose scrunched.

Security was tight during the launches, now that she thought about it. Not just guards, but police. What were they doing there?

Wires connected in her mind, and the answer came in a spark. Police, an explosion, murder—it wasn't rocket science. A terrorist would attack the space center, and the higher-ups knew_._

Aura had no awareness of her feet carrying her down the corridor. The sound of the door slamming behind her told her she'd returned to the lab, but her mind was still elsewhere. They knew. They _knew _a criminal would infiltrate their precious government hellhole and slaughter her Metis, and they'd revealed nothing. Why? Nationalist pride? Public relations? They were all scum, not just those who stood in court, but the entire government, and her family should never have gotten involved.

Her fist banged a table she didn't realize she'd moved next to. A concerned voice came from behind her.

"Aura, what's wrong?"

On instinct, Aura raised her hand to silence whichever robot had interrupted her fit. When she whirled, Metis stood there, stunned.

Aura's eyes widened, her hand freezing a foot from Metis's face. When she dropped it, it felt like a sandbag at her side.

"Metis." She swallowed. "I didn't see you there."

"Evidently," Metis said, her eyes glazed over. Aura couldn't imagine how she was processing what had almost occurred.

Unable to explain, Aura forced half a smirk. "Those higher-ups can be a pain, huh? I tried to meet with one just now, and—"

"Aura." Metis stepped away and raised her own hand with her palm out. "You're….you're frightening me."

Her insides like lead, Aura's smile dropped. She was aware she was scowling, but she couldn't remember how to reshape it to express her remorse. "Metis, I…"

"Don't. It's…in a while you will have calmed down, yes?"

Metis dipped her head and returned to her workstation. Aura stayed standing, supporting herself with a hand on the table. It took all of her willpower not to slam it. In her stillness, her legs felt like jelly.

Aura left before she could make it worse, driving out into town with her radio turned at its maximum volume and making a rude gesture at the old man who glared at her at a stoplight. The Metis in this timeline hadn't seen her hit Clonco. Was there a single mistake Aura hadn't bungled the chance to wipe clean?

The urge to slam the pedal shook her. How little control did she have over herself? Mere hours ago she'd wanted to hold Metis hostage. Now, she'd almost hit her. At this rate, she was as much of a danger to her as the terrorist—yet her current tactics were too passive. As a scientist, controlling so few variables drove her nuts.

Still lacking in better solutions, she returned to the space center with a packet of Metis's favorite tea, which she left on the desk with a note of apology and a request that Metis still come to the launch with her. When she woke the next morning, Metis set a cup of tea on her station in place of her usual coffee.

"It's a calming blend," Metis said. "I hope we will have a triumphant launch." She slipped away to her work before Aura could respond.


	3. Chapter 3: An Uncontrolled Variable

Metis rarely practiced as a doctor, but she was licensed to, so she spent part of the day before the launch treating employees suffering from anxiety. Aura took advantage of the time alone in the lab to check in with Ponco and Clonco. Given how few people Metis interacted with, Aura's spybots, as she called them, had little to report. Aura didn't intend to listen to them recount Simon's lessons with Metis, but Clonco insisted upon telling her one oddity.

"Uncle Simon asked Mommy Metis what she'd discovered about his phantom," Clonco said.

"He's got a phantom now? Is that the newest psychobabble for 'his demons?'"

"I don't know! Nothing about 'phantom' exists in my database! But Mommy Metis printed data from her mood matrix and told Uncle Simon that the phantom didn't experience feelings like normal people. Mama Aura, do I experience feelings like normal people?"

Aura disregarded the question and laid an arm over Clonco while she pondered. Simon requested Metis create a psychological profile—not one on him himself, if the results were any indication. 'Phantom' sounded like either an opera character or a codeword. Given his line of work…

Aura's head jerked up, her fists clenching as the truth hit her. He knew. Whoever this terrorist—this phantom—was that ruined everything, Simon knew.

Not only that, but he'd gotten Metis involved. _He'd _led her murderer to her. He was just as bad as the rest of the court system—no, worse. He, at least, professed to having honor, honor which Metis granted him, yet he might as well have invited a demon to slaughter her—and covered his tracks through deception.

Aura paced, nearly tripping on the cord of a machine that only Metis kept plugged in. Why had Simon covered for Athena, knowing a likelier monster hovered in the shadows? Had he not played the role of knight, Aura wouldn't have wasted years hating the princess, wouldn't have wasted her first attempt to save Metis on a red herring. So it wasn't her fault, after all—a bug had been placed in the system from the get go. Aura managed one bark of laughter before leaving, ignoring Clonco's pleas to let him finish his job as she pulled her coat on and stormed out.

Snow fell on her windshield as she drove to the prosecutor's office, where she would have spit on the steps were she not too a shade too classy. Ignoring the receptionist, she took the steps two at a time up to the floor where her brother worked. He was sitting at his desk when she burst in, slamming the door behind her and pulling him up by the lapels.

"You treacherous, phony piece of filth!"

Simon's face rivaled Athena's in shameless bemusement. "Aura, what are you doing here? I'm still—"

"You know," she continued, shaking him. "You _knew_. It's all your fault. It's _all your fault_!"

"Aura, these walls aren't soundproof, please_—_"

"I don't care if I embarrass you in front of your corrupt government friends," Aura spat. "I should have known better than to trust a prosecutor. I should have just left you to the gallows!"

"What the devil are you talking about?!"

"Funny you should mention devils. This phantom of yours—what are they?"

Simon's eyes widened, his lips parting slightly before pressing together. "Did Dr. Cykes tell you? Or, no…that robot, I knew I shouldn't have let it prowl about." He sighed, glancing at the door and window. "Listen, Aura—I'm about to tell you a strict government secret. If word leaks…"

"I don't care for your red tape. I'll keep my mouth shut on my terms, not yours."

His face tightened. "Then I can't tell you. Sister or not, I have a responsibility to the state to—"

"Responsibility. Always on about your responsibility. What about your responsibility to _me_?" Her fingers trembled on his lapels. When he reached to pry them off, she smacked his hand. "Why didn't you let me in, Simon? Do you have any idea how long I've been alone?"

Even without his eye bags, Simon looked tired. "Aura, I don't understand."

"Of course you wouldn't." She exhaled, recalling when he'd caught the shift in her face right off the bat. She'd doubled her makeup so that it wouldn't happen again, but…

After finding out what he'd concealed, she hadn't planned to reveal herself. But she'd had it with secrets and the isolation that came with them, and she missed her brother, had missed him for a decade. She took her handkerchief and wiped it across her eyes until makeup coated it. Simon cocked his head, squinting.

"Your face…?"

"Simon, I'm over forty years old." A lump caught in her throat. "My stupid baby brother. You don't have any idea what you've put me through."

Simon studied her, his expression masked in a technique Metis must have taught him. "Have a seat. I'll put the kettle on."

Aura dropped onto the couch, only now realizing how harsh her breathing was. Trying to calm it, she crossed her legs, her heel tapping as she watched Simon. His motions while brewing were similar to Metis's, though her face usually relaxed in the process whereas lines creased his brow.

Despite regaining much of her composure by the time he handed her a cup, it quivered in her hand. She took a sip and set it down before she could spill it.

"It's still not as bitter as hers," Aura said as Simon sat beside her. When he didn't respond, she sighed. "You're not going to believe this…"

And she could tell he didn't, though except for him biting his lip when she mentioned Metis's death, his mask lasted until Aura got to the part about Athena.

"How would you have possibly—"

"I don't need you to get on my case for it when you suspected her too," Aura snapped. Simon shook his head.

"What in hell's name would possess me to think…?"

"You never told me. You never told me a thing," she said, her voice more bitter than the tea. "If you had, I would have known about the phantom."

Simon slumped forward, his elbows resting against his thighs, and stared at the floor. "This is hard to swallow," he said. Aura crossed her arms.

"Told you you wouldn't believe me."

"No, I do. You're not above a prank, but you wouldn't fake distress over Metis."

After all he'd pushed her away, that he trusted such an absurd story made Aura's throat tighten. "How like you," she said, unable to keep the strain from her voice. He took her hand.

"It seems I caused you great worry," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

Minutes ago she'd been so furious at him, but having waited a decade for his apology, receiving it sapped her energy. _You'd better be_, was all she could say, so she said nothing.

His fingers were bonier now than while in jail, she thought when she rubbed a thumb across them. The fact she even knew that made her free hand came down hard on the couch cushion. "Just, dammit, why? Why her, why you, why Athena, why _me_? I can't even trust myself. I certainly can't trust anyone else, now that I know everyone knew a real criminal was running around. I don't…I don't know how what I'm supposed to rely on, Simon."

"Aura, I…"

"Don't bother with platitudes," she said, sniffing. "Nothing you say could possibly comfort me. Just…"

He squeezed her hand. "I understand. I swear on my master's honor that you shan't face the rest of this alone."

Tears spilled down Aura's cheeks. The release left her neither upset nor relieved, simply empty, spent. She rested her forehead on his shoulder. "Thank you," she whispered.

xxxxxxx

The pressure rebuilt itself in Aura's gut a minute into her drive back to the space center. When she entered the lab and found Metis dismantling a robot, her stomach churned. She contained it and touched Metis's shoulder.

"One needed fixing?"

Metis nodded. "One of the cleaning robots assigned to the launch pad. Their identification function was scrambled and their head damaged." She pursed her lips. "It didn't seem like an accident. Would you take a look?"

"Of course." Red flags waved. Was the phantom already in the facility? Perhaps they'd been employed there for months. It made more sense than a newcomer getting through the space center's security, much of which she'd created. Her resolve to trust none but her family intensified.

Aura fingered the dent in the metal. A fall might have caused it, but a blow seemed more likely. The damage to the software, however, must have been due to outside interference. She tapped her hip. A hacker—a spy.

Unable to share this revelation, Aura only recorded the problem as unidentified. When she looked up, she was surprised to find that Metis hadn't returned to her station but had been standing nearby watching. Her face looked controlled, but her hands stroked each other, and when Aura stood, Metis turned and slipped over to her chair.

Cold inside, Aura poked at her work for an unfocused period before excusing herself. When anxiety threatened as she left the lab (what if Metis wasn't there when she came back, what if the phantom—oh god, they were probably in the facility that moment—got her before Aura could even apologize?), Aura reminded herself that she was the only threat Metis registered. The thought made her want to laugh and cry in equal measure.

She arrived at the launch pad, scanning the room with suspicion. Cosmos was touring a few bigwigs, and technicians worked busily throughout the rest of the room. Accessibility being limited, and Aura having no plan for ghost busting, she reluctantly left, glaring daggers into each and every person in the room first.

Now that her presence could upset Metis, she dawdled on her way to the lab. When she neared it, she found she wasn't the only one: Athena stood in the corridor outside the lab, staring at the headphones in her hands with a frown.

Feeling awkward, Aura stretched, hoping the gesture would seem casual—not that it helped around the princess. "Metis called for you?"

Athena's mouth twitched. Her finger traced her ear, then played with her bang. "Don't want to enter," she said, her finger finding her mouth.

Crouching, Aura gently pulled the finger free. Athena jerked it away and went back to touching her hair. "I'm sure Metis is wondering where you are," Aura said.

Athena covered her ear and whipped her head side to side before jerking it up to face Aura. "Why are you upset?"

Aura smiled. "What do you mean?"

Athena puffed her cheeks out, her forehead scrunching in a gesture of concentration such a less controlled version of Metis that Aura's smile became less involuntary. "I don't know. It hurts to listen. I hear sadness, anger…are you angry at me?" she asked suddenly.

Knowing Athena would simply duck away, Aura resisted the urge to reach for her. "No," she said. "It's not you."

"Oh." Athena continued concentrating, and Aura wondered if she'd ask who it was, but she moved on. "You sound…guilty? Did you do something bad?"

"Yeah, I did."

The headphones in Athena's hand tapped against her leg. "What?"

Figured that she'd ask that. Aura looked at Athena properly for perhaps the first time in years—so little, yet so powerful; so brightly colored, yet so somber—before taking the headphones from her. "Lots of things. Sorry." Never an easy word, but it felt small, not even a byte in comparison to the mass of mistakes in Aura's memory.

"To who? To Mom?"

Aura turned the headphones around in her hands. "Yeah, I did something that hurt her."

"Oh." Athena seemed to lose interest. She stared at a wall and scuffed her foot against the floor. "You sound lonely."

Loneliness was such a constant state for Aura that hearing it stated like that struck a chord. "That's not your concern," she said. She reached out a hand. "Shall we go in and see your mother?"

Without taking the offered hand, Athena nodded and reached for the doorknob, her face pale and her eyes glazed. Lonely—it wasn't a foreign emotion to her in the least. For all their bulk, the headphones in Aura's hand felt light, but for Athena, they carried immeasurable weight, including the weight of a love Aura had no idea how Athena processed. She carried the headphones in, thinking that maybe when all of this was over she should ask.

Metis sat at her station with the mood matrix open and a file in her lap. "What kept you?" she asked. She didn't turn to face either of them, but Aura knew the question was for Athena, fueled by motherly concern despite its brusqueness. Glancing beside her, she saw that Athena had fixed her gaze on the floor.

"Athena was just giving me a therapy session. You have quite the budding psychologist here, you know."

Metis swiveled toward them, her expression unguardedly curious. Athena kicked her knees while Metis glanced between the two of them before smiling. "I'm sure that's true."

Whatever Athena heard in Metis's face, it made her blush, and it struck Aura how many wires could have connected if only Metis had never died. _Wouldn't _die—_could _connect, she reminded herself. If she'd doubted her mission was worth it, not a shred of doubt remained.

Once Athena left, Metis stared at the door for a long moment before running her hands through her ponytail. "Aura, if I may…"

"Of course," Aura said, pulling her chair up near Metis's station.

"I appreciate that you two got a chance to bond…" A tightness in Metis's voice betrayed rare jealousy.

"But?" Aura prompted, half-expecting Metis to ask her to stay away from her daughter. Metis tossed the ponytail back over her shoulder and shook it out.

"I may lack her empathy, but I'm a licensed psychologist. Should you need counseling, there's no need to burden her with it."

Aura ran that through her Metis decoder: _I'm here for you, too. _She smiled. "I'll keep that in mind."

If Metis carried her earlier apprehension to dinner, she didn't display it. Conversation passed lightly, broken up by the slurping of noodles and the sound of Ponco miming eating as she'd taken to doing. Athena almost made a mess trying to do her hair up with still-saucy chopsticks; Metis rose to get a clean pair and help her learn the method. Across the table, Aura met Simon's eyes and received a small nod, enough to remind her that someone had a whole foot in her world.

Perhaps loneliness didn't have to be a constant. The thought felt surreal, but Athena returned with a fresh hairdo, and Ponco tried to fit Athena's abandoned chopsticks into grooves at the top of her chassis, and Aura, against her better judgment, relaxed.

xxxxxxx

Simon tried speaking to the higher-ups, as he vented to Aura with a scowl, but the launch continued as planned. Aura hadn't bothered hoping they'd admit the threat, focusing instead on Metis, who she asked Simon to guard while she helped check the rocket. When she rejoined them and escorted Metis to the launch site, Metis seemed in good spirits, even chatting with others.

"I've never been to a launch before," she told a police officer standing guard. "I usually watch them from my lab."

No doubt wary of terrorists, the officer had worn a pensive expression when the two entered, but she smiled at Metis's excitement. Despite her unease, Aura had to smile, too. Metis never noticed, but like the moon and sun, others reflected her light.

By now, when the rocket exploded, Aura was prepared—or so she thought. A second later another boom sounded, only this time, it rocked the center itself.

Aura clapped her ears on instinct, grateful Athena wasn't there. Her heart pounding, she tried to register this bend in the formula. The deafening noise couldn't have come from more than a couple of rooms away, and though mission control was trained to deal with the rocket, they were not prepared for an attack on their own building.

Chaos unleashed. The task force brought in for this purpose moved to secure the area, leaving the command room less staffed than it had been and forcing Aura to take charge of the panicking employees. At first, she kept one eye on Metis, who had backed against a wall with her hands over her ears, but in the space it took Aura to turn around and yell a couple of commands, Metis disappeared.

Aura's heart thundered. She called Metis's name; when she got no response, she sprinted from the room without a word.

Emerging into smoke, she hurried through to the hall, where the smoke thickened. After an officer cordoning off the area confirmed that a woman in a kimono passed through, Aura elbowed them out of the way and ran, her heel catching on rubble before she made it to the elevator and ascended to the lab.

The door was locked. Aura shook the handle, wishing she'd brought the key. Had Simon locked it to keep Metis safe? If he had, that would be a weight off her shoulders. Still, a bad feeling filled her gut as an employee appeared whom she ordered to help break the lock. When they did, her knees almost gave out.

Simon lay on the floor, a bloody katana beside him. Metis held his head in her lap, keeping one hand pressed against her eyes to stop her tears from falling onto it.

Aura reached out to the doorframe, resting her head against it. Despite being more solid than his shoulder, it steadied her so much less.

When her legs could move, she settled down beside Metis and wrapped her arms around her. Metis buried her head in Aura's neck, weeping while Aura held her. After her release at the prosecutor's office, Aura didn't—couldn't—cry, letting Metis grieve for both of them. Metis's corpse had long haunted Aura's dreams, but Simon's didn't feel real, as if it was simply a collection of malfunctioning parts. Underneath her numbness, Aura felt a vague horror. Had she truly grown so used to death that kneeling beside her brother's corpse didn't faze her?

Metis removed her hand from Simon's cheek to cling to Aura, who shifted to support her. Metis. She was alive, as the sobs wracking her body attested. Just as Aura couldn't mourn, she couldn't rejoice while Simon's hand went cold. Still, when she felt the skin at the back of Metis's neck, she couldn't help but find relief in the fact that its warmth wouldn't fade.

Metis tried to speak, but it was fragmented, and Aura didn't force an explanation out of her. Besides, she already knew at least _what_ the murderer was. She grit her teeth, anger breaking through whatever barrier her psychology had constructed. So that monster would take everyone from her.

"Athena," Metis said, lifting her head. "I have to make sure Athena is safe."

"She was in her room," Aura said. "I'm sure she…" She trailed off. Athena had hardly stayed away from the scene of the crime before. If something happened to her now, it would be Aura's fault for only keeping tabs on her in the midst of suspicion.

At this point she remembered the employee who helped her open the door and found them at the threshold, calling for help. One less thing for Aura to worry about, she supposed.

That thought didn't last long. No sooner had the police come than they arrested Metis. She was too distraught and confused to react, but Aura was another story.

"Metis wouldn't harm a deactivated robot, let alone Simon. On what grounds are you pigs arresting her?"

"The door was locked, and nobody else was inside—is that right?" The officer turned to the employee, who pulled the brim of their cap over their face and nodded. Aura seethed. She should have knocked the door down by herself. "Plus—wait, you're not a part of the investigation. We don't have to reveal anything to you. Unless you know who did it?"

Aura could have lied. She could have offered herself up to the gallows in Metis's place. But unlike Simon, she wasn't an honorable knight who'd die for her liege. She was a scientist, a strategist, and she knew she could reset everything—but not if she was on death row. With guilt, she let the authorities take Metis away with nothing but curses on her part to stop them.

xxxxxxx

Spending years waiting for Simon to die didn't lesson the shock of having him suddenly taken away. When, upon lying down, the past twenty-four hours caught up to her—not just the cold hand she'd held, but the warm one that had gripped hers—she broke down and cried over a death she knew she could reverse. Because she _would _reverse it, wouldn't put all of that effort into saving Metis only to lose her brother instead.

Her tears had stopped when a quiet knock on her door made her call out an invitation to enter. She was unsurprised to see Athena there, clutching a robot part to her chest. Aura ran a hand through her unkempt hair and patted the again empty spot in her bed, which Athena hesitated before filling.

"Why did they take Mommy away? She can fix Simon, I know she can."

Aura sighed, petting Athena's head until Athena had had too much and jerked away. In the past, the princess's naivety would have angered her, but she didn't have the energy, especially when she knew it was her own fault for never bothering to tell Athena that people couldn't be fixed like machines.

_Then again, am I any better? _

"I'm going to fix him myself, but the machine's going to take a very, very long time to build, so be a good girl until then, okay?" Her own voice sounded odd; she wasn't used to affecting a tender tone, but she still felt guilty for her past behavior. Athena didn't seem comforted.

"I want Simon. Where's Mommy?"

Aura sighed again. "Mommy's going to be away for a while. I'll try to take you to her soon, all right?"

"Where did Mommy go? She's always leaving me. I want Simon." And to Aura's horror, Athena burst into tears.

She couldn't handle being touched, and Aura had no words of comfort. In the end, she let Athena cry for the both of them until she fell asleep, at which point Aura was too spent to finish her own crying and lay staring at the darkness with sore eyes.


	4. Chapter 4: A Revised Method

Aura sat in her car in the detention center parking lot long after visiting hours passed. Metis had barely spoken, but her eyes and the puffy skin around them held immeasurable sorrow. While that would have broken Aura's heart even if she hadn't been in mourning, the kicker was knowing that this was her fault. Fiercely her mind blamed Simon for acting rashly (on his _own_, after promising not to leave her alone, a promise she shouldn't have believed but did), but in the end she could only curse herself for getting him involved.

From what Aura could tell, Simon waited in Metis's place with the intention of facing his phantom. The fool—did he really think one too many samurai movies would be enough to give him an edge against a killer?

Aura laid her head on the steering wheel. She'd now seen three too many corpses of her loved ones. To force the images and the stench from her mind, she thought through the logistics. The killer had probably escaped through the window or another route; the extra explosion may have been to divert the attention of the officers outside. When Metis entered, the phantom must have slipped back in through the corridor and locked the door to make a scapegoat.

Well, it wouldn't work, Aura thought. Metis wouldn't confess, and they didn't have a shred of evidence against her.

When she met the next day with the lawyer, however, her optimism wavered. The scumbag was useless, barely listening to Aura's advice. She wouldn't have been surprised if they'd been bought off by the state, given how eager the government was to cover up the sabotage. Her rage at the system renewed itself, making her seriously consider revolting, but resetting the timeline had undone her progress on the giant robots she'd need, and in jail she wouldn't be able to reset it again.

In the end, the court determined that Metis's fingerprints on the weapon and the locked room were evidence enough to convict her. It was a farce—of course her prints were on her own possession, and the investigators should have found evidence of the phantom's escape route—but Aura couldn't do anything to stop it.

Metis pleaded not guilty. When the officers took her away, she resisted. Aura knew Metis fought death row for the same reason Simon had welcomed it.

At first, Aura visited Metis every possible minute. Before long, however, Metis's grief spurred Aura to rebuild the machine with obsessive fervor, leaving her without a sense of the passage of time. She only ate and slept as much as necessary to not shut down. A layer of gauze separated her from her surroundings. What was the point in investing anything in a world where Metis suffered in captivity while Aura's brother's corpse deteriorated when it could be erased? What was the point in being courteous to her coworkers, in keeping up with the news, in changing her clothes before falling into a lonely bed?

After that first night, Athena stayed in her own room, speaking to nobody but the robots, who were their own mess of tears and confusion. The government would take her soon, Aura knew. Given that, she only kept Athena fed, not comforted, as causing Athena to develop an attachment to her now would only hurt them both.

After a few days of volatile emotions, she ran out of them, working for hours without connection. Deep down she wondered if the condition was permanent, if she'd never be able to turn the switch back on to engage in the world. The phantom's psychological profile came to mind—_the subject doesn't experience emotions like normal people…_

So she'd finally created a robot of herself. Though it was a hollow sound, the thought made her laugh.

Still, the comparison to Metis's killer unsettled her enough that she put her work aside to visit Metis. Though Metis clearly tried to mask her anguish, she couldn't hide her swollen eyes.

"What of Athena? I've hardly seen her," Metis said after Aura asked about Metis's wellbeing, to dismissive responses.

"Simon was her godfather, and I don't have legal…they're still contacting relatives overseas. If that fails, they picked out an orphanage."

"An orphanage…?!" Metis's cuffs clinked as she covered her mouth, her eyes wide with uncontained horror. "They can't…! She's not an orphan! They can't take her!"

Aura pressed a hand against the glass, cursing her own helplessness. Even if it wasn't there, she'd be unable to comfort Metis, as she couldn't tell Metis how she knew that relatives took Athena in. They wouldn't even have embraced with the guard watching, an idea that seemed ridiculous to Aura now. How could she have brought Metis back to life, only to not _be _with her in any sense? The longing seemed selfish in light of Metis's suffering, but Aura had spent so long alone, so long without Metis by her side and in her arms.

"I promise I've been working on something to save you. Just wait a little longer," Aura said, her thumb rubbing the glass.

Metis's chin dropped. "I don't care what happens to me. Just please, help Athena. It should have been me and not Simon, anyway."

The irony might have made Aura howl if seeing Metis this defeated wasn't breaking her. _After all I did to save you, you can't just say that_. "I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted that."

"I hardly knew Athena's smile until he joined us. I've never been able…Oh, Aura, _why_?"

It was a question Aura could answer, but not to Metis, and not in broader terms—_why has any of this happened to us_—so she left with nothing gained except a new hole in her numbness, which began to close as soon as she left the prison and stepped out into the December air.

xxxxxxx

Athena was sent off to Europe. Aura didn't know whether she'd be happy there; she doubted it, but she'd never bothered to learn. Metis wasted away in jail, looking more like a skeleton with each month. With nobody to protect and no front to keep up, she retreated into herself, a ghost of a presence that contained little color behind white and dark purple.

The tear tracks down her cheeks mimicked Simon's. Her hair grew until its split tips brushed the floor, at which point she chopped off the whole lot.

Aura finished the machine in a year. She wasted no time in booting it up.

xxxxxxx

Seeing Metis again was almost more surreal now than the times when she died. Even while still blinking the sleep from her eyes she glowed with a vitality she hadn't had in a year, her face unblemished and her hair long and soft to the touch. The sight hurt Aura, who closed her eyes and pulled Metis close, absorbing her warmth and her breath.

Aura didn't realize she was shaking until Metis began stroking her back. "Nightmare?" Metis murmured with a yawn.

Guilt gnawed at Aura. That Metis didn't _know _didn't mean Aura didn't remember what she'd put her through. She'd rather have Metis yell at her than be in her arms and yet so removed from her. The urge to tell Metis everything crashed over Aura in a wave that almost washed the words from her mouth. She remembered how cathartic telling Simon was—how much better would it feel with Metis? What if it was the key to truly _being _with her?

Aura bit her lip, almost breaking the skin. Sharing information with Metis wouldn't change how little of Aura's life they'd shared. She could rewind time for the rest of the world, but she couldn't get her own back.

Not only that, but though she'd lost Simon as an ally, he was not only blissfully unaware but also _alive_. If Aura dragged Metis into her tragedy…

Aura pulled away from Metis's hold, forcing a smile. "Yeah," she said. "Just a bad dream."

xxxxxxx

Seeing Simon again gave Aura a pang. By now he was about half her age and would probably outlive his sister by a couple of decades, more if trauma aged her. She would make sure he lived long enough for that, at least; when he tried to approach her in the hall, she evaded him.

She tried to avoid the princess…Athena, too, which wasn't hard, as they were both reclusive and—Aura wasn't proud to acknowledge—Athena was used to being ignored. However, when Metis asked Aura to deliver medicine to Athena, Aura found herself outside Athena's room, pressing the button for the lighting system Metis had had her install in place of knocks on the door.

Aura had hardly been in the room since the day she'd told Athena her secret, a period of her life that she didn't want to think about. Still, she knew the décor hadn't changed throughout the years and leaps, as if the bed shaped to carry Athena to the moon, the many blankets Athena wrapped around her ears, and the side table that Metis had carved her love into functioned as their own time capsule. When she entered now, Athena sat at her desk with a pile of homework she was clearly ignoring in favor of trying to take apart her alarm. Aura set the medicine on her desk.

"Math?" she said, picking up the top worksheet. Athena shrugged. With all her absences, it probably meant as little to her as the work Aura had come back to after resetting.

Athena pushed her lips out, apparently hearing Aura's mood from that one word. "You sound…" Aura still remembered the list from before—angry, guilty, lonely—and knew it would still apply.

"Try unscrewing the back first," Aura said with a nod at the tool in Athena's hand and a wink. She left before Athena could respond.

xxxxxxx

When it came to saving Metis, Aura's options for subtlety were running low. No problem, she thought as she adjusted the voltage on her ray gun. She'd never liked subtlety, anyway.

This time, she wouldn't bother with the launch. She had no plan to stop the sabotage, and it wasn't her concern. Getting leave from it didn't take much—a robotics scientist wasn't necessary, not that she'd have gone if they ordered her.

Now that she knew that what the phantom wanted was in the robotics lab, she planned to keep Metis away from it and lie in wait to intercept them. The phantom—Aura spent the last year muttering the term, relieved to have something to direct her hate at that deserved it. She checked her ray gun again and raised the voltage higher.

Of course, it would do no good if Metis got caught in the crossfire. She tried to convince Metis to be elsewhere that day—asking her to run errands or to watch the launch in Aura's place—to no avail.

"I'm nearing a breakthrough on sadness and the frequency of sound waves," Metis said without looking up from her work. "I can't afford to spend a moment away from the lab until it's done."

Aura bit her lip, trying to hold back the voice blaming Athena for this obstacle. "Can I work on it in your place? It'd just be a couple of hours."

"Unfortunately, it's very psychology-specific. Why are you so fixated on that specific date? And don't pretend you're not."

Yet again Aura thought about how much easier this would be if she weren't surrounded by psychologists. "It's the launch," she lied. "The atmosphere's tense, isn't it?"

"You aren't usually in tune to that sort of thing."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aura's feigned offense didn't faze Metis. Groaning, Aura brushed her bang off her forehead. "Just trust me, all right? Stay out of the lab that day—no, just that morning. Please? Spend the time with Athena, if you really want to help her. She's been lonely."

It'd been over a decade since Aura saw more than a couple days into the recent past, but it was a safe bet. By the sorrow on Metis's face, she thought so, too.

"All right. I don't know what's going on, but I trust you. Now, how _do _I spend a couple of hours with Athena? It's pitiful that I have to ask, isn't it?"

Metis sighed. Aura's mind wasn't on it; the word _trust _struck her worse than anything sharp could. Not only had she left Metis to rot in jail, but there was no doubt in her mind that if Metis had refused, she would have detained her by any means necessary.

Well, it hadn't come to that. No use fretting. "All the more reason to try, right? Why don't you draw with her?"

Metis ran a hand through her hair. "I'm more skilled with crafting, but…I'll try."

"That's the spirit." Aura slung an arm around Metis, causing Metis to tense. She was in tune to Aura's own tension, Aura knew. She only stayed that way for a moment, her focus absorbed by warmth and heartbeats and the back of a hand brushing her shoulder before she stepped back.

The last Aura saw of Metis before setting out to the lab the morning of the launch, she was kneeling next to Athena, silently watching her paint a patient Ponco.

xxxxxxx

Aura sat in the lab, adjusting the protective measures she'd taken. She wasn't the sort to just sit around, but she knew how much robotics could absorb her attention and didn't dare work when the phantom could arrive any moment. While she waited, she located the phantom's psychological profile and flipped through it. A person with almost no emotional fluctuation. Somebody who couldn't feel guilt about the agony they'd caused her family, no doubt. Though her blood boiled, she felt reassured that her worries about becoming like them were unfounded.

Presumably this ghost of a human couldn't fear death, either. She was well aware she could be waiting for her demise without anybody to reset time. Perhaps she should have left instructions with the robots, but though her heart thumped, she found she couldn't care. She'd reset thrice already and lived three lives of heartache. She was done. She would win, or she wouldn't.

It was a quiet hour, as Metis followed up on her promise to stay away—of course she did, Simon got his code of honor from somewhere, and it wasn't the Blackquills—and being tied up in the launch, no employees came by. At the thought of the employees, something niggled at Aura. To infiltrate such a high-security building, the phantom had to be stationed there. Not only that, they must have used the confusion with the HAT-1 to slip into what they probably hoped was an unoccupied lab.

Somebody who wasn't near the launch…

Had Aura not been facing the door, she would have missed it opening. The face that appeared meant little to her, but she recognized the person immediately. They were the employee that had helped her open the locked door, the one that was first after her on the scene when she'd found Metis.

Aura stood, one hand gripping the trigger of her ray gun behind her back as she faced the monster who'd killed her family. The file flapped when she held it up, demonstrating the flimsiness of the bait that brought a murderer to her home.

"Looking for this?"

The newcomer froze, staring at the file before pulling their cap over their brow in a gesture that tugged on Aura's memory.

"So it was you," she said. "You slaughtered them."

The cap slid lower. "I don't know what you're talking about, Ma'am. I'm just here to pick up a prescription. Launch anxiety, you know. If the doc's not in…" The employee began to slip away. Aura pursed her lips.

"Don't think I'm letting you escape, phantom."

They froze again, their hand adjusting its grip on the knob before they entered and shut the door behind them with a click. Sweat formed on Aura's brow as she forced a smirk.

"How?" the phantom asked. "No—it doesn't matter."

Their eyes slid over Aura's shoulder, undoubtedly toward the katana, but she didn't pull out the ray gun. As it stood, she had no case for justifiable self-defense, and she didn't plan on keeping her family off death row only to enter it herself.

When the phantom reached into their pocket, Aura was on her guard. But when they pulled out a lighter, she was thrown off.

"You're going to burn down a metal room? I'm not impressed," she said. The lighter clicked, and before she could register the lack of a flame, two shots knocked her flat on her back, where she lay with a searing pain in her abdomen.

_Foolish_, she thought. _Foolish, foolish! _Dizziness hit her when she lifted her head, and the pain spread up her torso.

Vaguely she registered that the plate of scrap metal she'd attached to the inside of the breast of her lab coat saved her, but that did no good if she couldn't counterattack. She forced her arm up at the approaching figure, trying to aim despite her pulsing vision. It was no good. She couldn't steady her arm, couldn't see. She was going to die.

_At least it will be me. _Her years of grief didn't make the thought soothing. She'd wanted to share them with her loved ones, but not like this.

Metis's words after Simon's death came back to her. _It should have been me. _Aura never told her how wrong that was, how losing Metis was like the sky losing the sun. She always thought she'd get a chance, later, in this time or another.

Footsteps clacked on the tile. A shape moved toward her, fuzzy enough to be a ghost. She placed her finger on the trigger, her neck straining in discomfort nowhere near as sharp as her wound, which was leaving a stain on her lab coat. She couldn't tell if she was about to shoot at the phantom or the ceiling, but that was no reason not to shoot at all.

Before she could, she heard a bang at the door and the click of a lock. _No, _she thought. _Don't come. Don't save me. I'm going to save…_

The door swung open. "Halt!"

Horror filled Aura as she recognized Metis's voice.

The phantom stopped advancing. Squinting, Aura made out yellow and black blobs. Both of them. _No_.

The phantom turned and raised their lighter. Clenching her jaw, Aura aimed her ray gun at what she hoped was their back and fired.

Electricity shot at them, causing them to hit the ground with a thud and a gasp. Aura couldn't recall a more satisfying moment. She intended to continue, thinking of paralyzing them, of watching them writhe and fall limp, of causing them a fraction of the pain they'd caused her in a way even they could feel…but before she could test how far she'd push it, someone she could only assume was Simon leapt on the phantom and pinned them down. Trust her brother to be helpful at the wrong moment.

Two shapes wrestled with each other, but Aura couldn't shoot again as long as Simon would be caught in the blast. Her arm fell, her elbow resting on the tile as she panted, her free hand reaching for her abdomen and finding slickness.

Footsteps hurried toward her—Metis, _Metis—_but rather than kneel by Aura, she ran past. The katana, no doubt. Pride welled.

Through the blood pounding in her ears she heard Metis call for backup. Metis returned to Aura's side, standing with the phone in one hand and her katana at the ready in the other. Even to her blurred vision it was one of the most striking sights Aura had ever seen.

Mid-sentence, Metis dropped the phone. "Not my pupil," she growled as she lunged, and Aura realized Simon was losing his battle. Lowering the voltage on her ray gun, she heaved her aching arm back into position.

It wasn't necessary. Metis's katana found the phantom's neck, forcing their chin up. "Surrender honorably," she ordered. Something nobody could honestly expect a spy to do, but it awed Aura.

The police arrived shortly after, wasting little time in taking the phantom away. Aura regretted not getting a more sadistic revenge, but letting them waste away on death row was as fitting an end as any.

With her adrenaline and anxiety gone, physical pain took over, making her groan. Metis and Simon knelt on either side of her, supporting her with strong arms.

"What the hell are you two doing here?"

"That's all you have to say to us?" Simon asked. One of his eyes sported a nasty bruise that in Aura's haze resembled the bags he'd never develop.

"Simon checked in on Athena and I and confided about the threat. He was worried the phantom might know the profile was here—especially when I said you asked me to stay away," Metis said.

"Mother hen," Aura muttered. She grunted in pain. Metis's grip tightened on her arm, making Aura realize Metis was trembling.

"I called the paramedics," Metis said, her voice not betraying her worry. "They should be here any second."

"I was trying to protect all of you. You weren't supposed to rescue me," Aura grumbled.

"We would have been shot down in an instant if not for you," Metis replied, stroking Aura's hair. Aura leaned into the touch, surprised at its open tenderness, surprised something so soft could live.

"You don't have to do everything yourself, you know," Simon said.

"Funny, coming from you," Aura grumbled despite his lack of context. Still, the words resonated. She'd acted in isolation for years, but those years were gone.

"Who was it who lay there bleeding—"

"How are you feeling?" Metis cut in. Aura tried to smile.

"I've had worse," she said. _We all have, _she thought, but she didn't say it. This time, they would never have to know. The phantom would never haunt her family again.


	5. Conclusion: Integrated Hearts and Logic

Simon questioned Aura about her knowledge of the phantom to no avail. Telling him now wouldn't endanger him, but there was no reason to ruin his innocence when she'd won him the chance to lose it gradually. Eventually he gave up, either in acknowledgement of her stubbornness or out of courtesy for her hospitalization.

Normally being cooped up in a hospital room would have driven Aura nuts, but now that she'd completed her mission, she appreciated the rest. It was funny—having thought of this as the finish line, she hadn't questioned what would come after, but in reality this was the beginning she'd fought for. For now, all she could do was heal.

She kept her hair down in the hospital. Perhaps she'd keep it down when she was released.

Metis brought Athena to visit, and to Aura's surprise, stayed as long as they were allowed. Athena, for her part, had been overwhelmed by people's anxiety in the waiting room, but in Aura's hospital room Athena seemed content to sit and sketch the flowers she'd brought from her friend's garden.

"I thought you had work?" Aura asked Metis after Simon took Athena out for ice cream. "You don't have to feel obligated to watch me lay around."

"I want to be here," Metis said, rubbing a thumb against Aura's hand where she clasped it. She shifted in her chair. "I haven't been…very present, have I?"

Aura's throat felt dry. _Less present than you know_.

"Well, you're here now. No use dwelling on the past."

"Still…"

"Metis." Aura squeezed Metis's hand. "I've just wanted to see you smile. That's all."

The corners of Metis's lips lifted—a delicate gesture, but real. "I think I can manage that."

They both could, finally.

xxxxxxx

As soon as the hospital released Aura, she returned to work. Most of the space center thought she was nuts, and told her so. Those who mattered didn't, as they were workaholics, robots, or Athena, who thought the hospital took an awful long time to fix Aura and that Metis would have done a better job. Then and there Aura vowed that she and Metis would sit down with her soon and talk about the difference between people and robots, and how some things couldn't be fixed—though Aura herself knew otherwise.

Still, despite undoing her family's tragedies, she couldn't repair the damage they did to her. In the first weeks she gave her loved ones extra attention, taking time off of all-nighters to stargaze with Metis, showing Athena how to tend to the robots and even taking her and her friend to a zoo, visiting Simon's baby hawk and sitting through his ramblings about proper bird care. Throughout it all, the wound in her abdomen ached, reminding her of what she'd gone through to earn this.

Yet, engaging in others after all this time proved difficult. While she and Metis lay together and read, Aura felt restless, her hands itching without something to fix or a murderer to punish. She couldn't believe the woman next to her would stay—like stardust, Aura expected her to sparkle before dispersing out of Aura's reach. Aura began to fall into moods, and then, fearing another incident of abuse, to keep her distance so her years of suffering couldn't harm Metis. This backfired, as _still_ being apart from Metis worsened Aura's frustration.

As they had throughout her ordeal, her emotions began to shut down as if to protect the unit from overheating. She didn't fully register it until one night while helping Athena catch up on her homework.

"You don't have to be here if you don't want to," Athena said. Looking up from Athena's science text, Aura saw her chewing her pencil. She'd long-since wrecked the eraser, but Aura had scanned most of Athena's work so the girl could do it digitally.

"Aura Blackquill doesn't do anything she doesn't want to, believe me." Her bravado, of course, didn't affect Athena, who started tapping the pencil against the desk before dropping it after a particularly loud tap.

"You didn't want to pick me up from school, or help plan the space museum, or go to the theater with Mom." Hearing these facts stated so simply might have made Aura blush were she of a different disposition. As it was, she examined her nails.

"Hm. Well, adults don't always get to do what they want."

"Yeah, but it…" Athena rubbed the pencil against her cheek, her lips moving silently as if trying out words. "It sounds different. Like you don't care."

That would have sent Aura's hand slamming down on the desk if it weren't for all the self-control she'd struggled to develop around Athena. Would someone who didn't _care _have gone through hell and back?

When her indignation died down, she had to admit that Athena had a point. Increasingly she found herself going through the daily motions without true connection. It was as she'd feared: she didn't know how to shake off the sense that everything would be erased, that she'd leap from this time and leave the world around her behind. While she acted on feelings, it was akin to a robot acting on an artificial heart.

Or a phantom.

The thought gave her chills one evening when they all sat watching a samurai movie. She excused herself—not difficult, as they knew she didn't care for their movies—and wandered into the lab, sitting with a wince as pain shot up her side. Truthfully, she welcomed the sensation as a distraction.

Did that phantom mind physical pain? The memory of their body hitting the ground surfaced, and without thinking, Aura rolled her chair over to Metis's workstation to pull up the profile. Simon held the physical copy, but Metis created a digital backup before he took the phantom to trial.

Without reading the document, she closed it and pursed her lips. Privacy meant far more to Metis than to her. Besides, what was wrong with her, comparing that monster to a robot when her children held more heart than they ever would?

She leaned back in her chair, swiveling absently in a movement reminiscent of Athena. Before long, her wound strained and she halted.

The data remained in the computer, taunting her. _No, _she thought. That's over with.

Was it? As far as her family knew, it hadn't even happened. She'd told the truth to Athena and Simon before, but she'd erased those memories, leaving them happier people. Metis—the one person Aura wanted to reach more than anyone—never knew, and for her sake, Aura planned to never tell her. She let Metis comment on how recovering from her injury aged Aura with little more than a joke in response, let Metis kiss her goodnight without knowing what that simple gesture meant.

Metis footsteps fell so quietly that Aura wouldn't have heard them had she not still expected to be the lab's sole employee. Aura swiveled quickly, glad she'd already closed the file.

"Sorry," she said. "A bit samurai'd out for the night."

Metis's solemn expression told Aura that this wasn't a time for jokes, not that that usually stopped Aura. "Aura, may I speak with you?"

The phrase gave Aura dread, but she agreed. Metis sat in her own desk chair, facing Aura and smoothing her kimono. "Ever since before the launch, you've been retreating. After the phantom's capture, you were more affectionate than usual, but the spike dropped quickly. That's normal after a traumatic event, but…I'm afraid you're more distant than you were before."

All fair observations, but as always when faced with Dr. Cykes, ace psychologist, Aura found herself getting defensive. "Your point?"

"Aura, it's worrying behavior. You…"

"If you feel like I'm ignoring you, just say so." Aura regretted snapping as soon as she did it, but being under Metis's microscope made her antsy, and besides…Metis had always been a distant person, even before she went somewhere from which Aura shouldn't have been able to retrieve her. Who was she to get on Aura for it?

"I'm only concerned for you. I fear you may have undergone trauma from your shooting that isn't being treated."

Aura laughed. "The shooting? That's the _least _traumatic thing I've been through in the last—"

She clamped her mouth shut. Worry painted Metis's features, making Aura wish she could reset conversations. "Aura? What else has happened?"

All of it came back to her in a flash—Metis's limp body, the stench of Simon's blood, Athena's sobs in her bedroom—forcing her to smack a hand on the table to ground herself. She didn't realize she was hyperventilating until Metis grabbed her chin and directed Aura's gaze to her mouth, which demonstrated breaths. When Aura regained control of herself, she straightened.

"Sorry," she said. "My wiring must be faulty."

Metis didn't smile. Aura's smirk dropped.

"Look, Metis, you'll be happier not knowing."

"Happier leaving someone I love to cope on her own?" Metis's tongue tripped over the word; Aura's breath faltered. She could probably count the amount of times they'd said it on one hand, at least out loud, in that form.

One or both of them reached, and their fingers intertwined in the space between the desk chairs.

She'd wanted more than to save Metis. She wanted to _be _with her, in a way that went behind working with her until sundown and sleeping beside her at night. More than the sparks of wires connecting, more than a simple wrench could fix.

She blew out. "Metis, you've noticed my face."

"Yes, it's quite a pretty one."

Aura rolled her eyes, her lips twitching despite herself as she prodded Metis's hand. "You know what I mean."

"Forgive me—it's being prematurely aged by stress. I wouldn't be surprised if your hair starts graying."

It already had, but there was no point in mentioning that. "I…do you remember me saying I wanted to find a formula to bend space-time?"

Metis nodded, then after a pause, her eyes widened. "You…? Are you?"

"From the future, yes. It's been quite a ride, I'm sure you can imagine."

"Time travel," Metis breathed. "You really succeeded at it?"

"You're not skeptical?"

"Of course not. I'm sure you're capable of achieving any technological advances you put your mind to."

The flattery, spoken in such a matter-of-fact voice, would have made Aura assume she was being mocked if it were anyone else. As it was, the praise pleased her enough that she almost forgot their situation. "Yeah, it was pretty brilliant. I'll tell you all about it later. More importantly…"

"Your reason…?"

Aura looked at Metis, at her bearing, serene even now. She looked at how perfectly a traditionally dressed woman fit into the futuristic space lab, how its pinks and purples that the two of them picked out complemented Metis's coloring. She looked at eyes that held a twinkle currently shadowed by concern, at hair slightly disheveled from the day's end, and at lips Aura wanted to kiss instead of having this conversation.

"You died," Aura said. Tears welled in her eyes without warning. She took off her goggles and pressed to prevent the flow.

What could one say to that? Metis squeezed Aura's hand. "Oh, Aura."

"They…they thought Simon did it."

"For heaven's sakes!"

"He was a bloody idiot, sacrificing himself—"

"For whom?"

"That's not the point, the point is that—"

"_Why_?"

Due to Athena, Metis's voice almost never raised beyond a certain level, but now it came forward with a force that made Aura snap to attention. She looked away, the rush of release diminished by shame.

"He thought Athena did it. We both did," she said.

Aura didn't look at Metis until Metis withdrew her hand. Her expression looked more horrified than any version of her Aura had ever seen.

"My _daughter_?"

"He had a compelling reason, I suppose, though he never shared it with me. He planned to take whatever memory haunted him to the grave, not that I stuck around long enough for…"

Metis stood. From the anger on her face, Aura could tell she'd stopped listening.

"I trusted you not to take a joke this far, but now you're simply talking rubbish! My pupil would _never _accuse Athena of—"

"But you don't doubt _I _would?"

"You…you have the tendency to misdirect negative feelings," Metis mumbled, her cheeks flushing. That the statement was true didn't relieve Aura's indignation. She'd poured out secrets she'd never meant to reveal, and on top of that, Metis would accept time travel and her own death, would accept Aura's pettiness, but not the idea that Simon would slight her precious princess?

"Listen, Aura, I didn't mean to accuse you of…Whatever-whatever it is you went through, I'm sure it's jumbling…"

Metis fell silent. Aura glanced at the screen on Metis's desk.

"Perform a reading on me. Then you should be able to—" _To prove I'm not a ghost_."To tell whether or not I'm lying."

After a moment, Metis nodded. Aura slid her chair aside and Metis sat back down, already masking her distress as she started up the mood matrix with a professional ease Aura admired.

"Tell your story from the beginning," Metis said, her voice both firm and calming.

Aura leaned back and hugged her arms as she recounted the tale—Metis's death, Simon's incarceration, the seven years leading up to his execution. Sadness and anger dominated throughout, until a small amount of happiness registered upon her completion of the time machine. At that point, Metis interrupted for the first time.

"When you say you finished it, you feel happy…"

"Of course. I was going to stop Simon's execution and see you again. Or get myself killed if worse came to worse, which wouldn't have been so bad at that point, all things considered." She shrugged. Metis didn't react to the morbidity, instead tapping the screen.

"Yet you also felt sadness. Not fear of failure—just sadness. Why?"

Aura tilted her head and stared at the clutter on her desk, straining to remember back that far. "I think it was because of the robots. I was saying goodbye to them, after all, even though they'd still be here."

Metis nodded, her eyes soft. "I see."

"That wasn't all, though." Aura hesitated; this was one detail Metis never had to know, and would certainly disapprove of, but laying everything on the table would be pointless if she left anything out. "I also mistreated them, back then. I had a lot of anger I didn't know how else to vent, and they…they reminded me of what I'd lost. That's probably why…"

"You blamed Athena." Metis controlled her voice, but Aura knew the effort in doing so betrayed Metis's displeasure.

"Yeah." Aura rushed into her explanation of that. If Metis would hate her for anything, it would be this, so there was no sense in dancing around the point. Metis watched the screen the entire time, but apparently none of Aura's emotions contradicted her story, a fact that seemed responsible for Metis clenching the hands folded in her lap.

Upon reaching the discovery of the crime scene, the mood matrix extracted and displayed images of what Aura saw—Simon cradling Metis's body and the bloody katana. Metis inhaled sharply, and Aura hastened to move on, unable to tear her own gaze from a scene she'd never wanted to revisit.

Before she could, Metis interrupted. "Amidst your grief and surprise, you felt a bit of happiness…?"

Aura flinched, aware of how that must look. "I don't remember feeling happy. I remember wanting to die, to be frank."

"Yet you registered some joy—no, relief. Can you repeat the last piece?"

If it hadn't been Metis's technology, Aura would have written it off as a malfunction, but when she repeated the segment the truth immediately became obvious. "When you died again, I realized the princess couldn't have killed you."

Metis touched a finger to the screen. "There, the green icon lit up when you said…"

"Princess."

For the first time since the session began, Metis looked away from the matrix and met Aura's eyes. Relief shone in Metis's own.

"Of course I didn't really want it to be her, Metis."

Metis nodded, opening her mouth as if to speak as the mother or perhaps the lover before the psychologist took over, turning back to the screen. "You may continue."

Sadness and anger continued to dominate as Aura described her discovery of Simon's mission and her subsequent roping him into hers, with happiness at his support. Metis's hand flew to her mouth when the image of his corpse appeared. Having intended to resist touching her until they'd settled all this, Aura reached on impulse to squeeze her shoulder. "Let's move on," she said quietly.

"No," Metis said. "You…you had to _live _through this."

"That doesn't mean you have to linger on the replay."

"I'm a psychologist, Aura. I can handle it."

Aura gave Metis's shoulder a quick rub before withdrawing. After a few deep breaths, Metis lowered her hand and scrolled through the data. "Slight relief?"

"You were alive," Aura said. Metis parted her lips, closed them, nodded.

The sadness meter pulsed at a low level before spiking every few moments. "You're not going to comment on that?" Aura asked, pointing.

"It's no mystery. Shock and trauma overloaded your nervous system—not surprising." The casual way Metis stated it reassured Aura.

The happiness at saving Metis quickly disappeared as Aura continued on through her arrest and incarceration. Metis's face betrayed nothing at the images of herself deteriorating. "That's how Simon looked," she said.

"Nope. He was worse. Seven years plus, you know, he's not as much of a looker to begin with."

Metis didn't seem to know whether to smile or frown. Instead she asked, "What of Athena?"

"Relatives overseas."

Something in Metis's eyes died. "They took her."

"Not _our _Athena," Aura said firmly. "She's watching a movie a few rooms away."

The sound of the mood icons pulsing filled the pause along with Metis's finger scratching the edge of the desk. "When you say 'our'…"

Aura rubbed at a stain on her glove. "I just meant…" She crossed her arms, her legs. She hated stuttering, hated apologies, but they'd have to get this topic over with. "I considered doing every horrible thing to her you can't imagine. I don't deserve the girl."

Metis's jaw tightened. "But do you _want_ to?"

The question caught Aura off guard in a way a slap to the face wouldn't have. "I…it's not like I ever got a chance to actually…"

Metis closed her eyes. "I shouldn't have asked."

For years Aura attached so much anger and shame to Athena that thinking about her now was difficult. When she strained to move past that, other feelings surfaced—fondness toward Athena's interactions with the robots, amusement at her out-of-the-box thinking, their shared sorrow after Simon's death and Metis's arrest, and perhaps most of all, the way she could never hide from Athena no matter how many worlds she ran away from. Either way, though, there was only one answer she could give.

"Metis," Aura said softly, "she's yours. Of course I want to share her."

Metis raised a hand as if to reach for her but rubbed her own eyes instead. Her posture collapsed. "How am I meant to process any of this? My family's been torn apart thrice, and I wasn't _there_."

"You were there. Just not…"

"Not _this _me."

"It wasn't this _them, _either."

"But it was this you."

There wasn't anything Aura could say to that. She'd long-since known she'd been upgraded—downgraded—so many times that her system might not be compatible with the others'.

"Anyway, as far as the princess goes, I know I'm shameless, but even I wouldn't ask for your forgiveness."

Metis's jaw clenched. "It's her place to choose to forgive you or not, not mine."

"That's—Metis, she's never going to _know_." _And it's _your _opinion I care about, _she thought, but she wouldn't have said it and no doubt didn't need to.

"You don't know that for sure. Though I can't say whether keeping her in the dark is for the best or not," Metis said, sorrow in her voice. Aura couldn't say, either, and the mood matrix's sound once again took over, the image still on Metis in jail while the frowning icon stretched its full length.

"Should I have kept you in the dark?" Aura asked. Metis shook her head emphatically.

"Bottling such intense trauma is psychologically damaging. I'm glad you asked for a therapy session."

Something in Aura's chest went cold. She moistened her lips. "Is that Dr. Cykes talking, or my lover?"

Metis met her eyes, looking for a moment to be lost, maybe even scared. Her hand flew to her neck as she averted her gaze. "That was Dr. Cykes. I…" She flicked a piece of hair near her ear that had come loose from her ponytail. "I would never want you to carry such a burden alone. I want to be there to support you. I want…"

_Want_. A forbidden word for them—for Metis, who lived to serve her daughter's needs, and for Aura, who'd put her own desires aside in respect of that. Again Metis met Aura's gaze, and this time, the longing there made Aura's heart thump.

"I want to be a part of all of your…of you."

It was a wonder that Aura's voice remained calm, that it didn't come out in a rush of breath. "I want the same thing."

They stared, both (Aura was sure of that) torn between desire and everything they still had to work through. The desire won as they both moved to stand; Aura was faster, and Metis sat back while Aura bent to kiss her. Ten years—more—of desperation drove Aura, but Metis grabbed her sides just as tightly as Aura gripped her shoulders, causing Aura to stumble back when the pain in her wound resurfaced.

"I'm sorry," Metis said, cheeks flushed. "I'd forgotten…"

"Doesn't matter," Aura said, wincing as she bent again. Thanks to her damned injury, Metis's brief lack of inhibitions vanished, and her hold on Aura's arms was careful, her mouth gentle until Aura's passion caused it to yield. The matrix continued its infernal beeping while Aura rested her knee on the chair, determined to get cozier. Unfortunately, they usually only touched like this in bed, where they didn't have to deal with things like maneuvering in swivel chairs, and so Aura didn't anticipate the wheels sliding out from under them, depositing them both on the floor.

After their surprise passed, they both laughed, loud fits that ended with Aura clutching her abdomen. Metis helped her up before settling back into her own chair, to Aura's disappointment. Coughing, Metis fiddled with the collar of her kimono.

"To be honest, I still have reservations. It's not that I don't…but Aura, there's so much to wrap my mind around. I know you, but do I?"

"There's a lot you don't," Aura admitted, running a finger along the chair's arm and wishing it was Metis's instead. "If you want, you can analyze my reactions to everything in the past few weeks. You'll find I've been more detached than I let on. Maybe you'll even want to reprogram me." Metis shook her head and turned off the matrix.

"I've only wanted to gain some understanding of what you've been through in my absence; I've no need to pry into your feelings since then. And I'd _never _suggest a human being needed reprogramming."

"Thanks, but…Metis, I'm serious. Who knows, if you made a profile of me lately, it might even resemble that phantom's." Aura kept her tone casual, but her gaze fell on the mask on the wall. Metis always said a Noh mask could turn an average human into a phantom. While she hadn't quite worn a mask, Aura spent years constructing herself to hide her experiences, her self.

"Aura, look at me. Don't for a second compare yourself to my killer. They destroyed me—you saved me. Not just me—you kept Athena from being orphaned and Simon from jail, or worse. You've done much for our family, all while suffering deeply."

"You give me too much credit. I hurt your daughter and abused the robots."

"I know. I can't pretend to be all right with that," Metis said. "And we'll discuss it more later. But as far as your psychology goes, emotion is an involuntary, complex thing. Ponco and Clonco may not 'feel' emotion the way humans do, but they still provide companionship to those who need it."

Aura caught the emphasis in her voice and understood. For Metis, who spent most of her life in the lab, the robots and Aura were among the only companionship she had—companionship she _needed_.

A lump caught in Aura's throat. In all the time she'd spent saving Metis, she'd forgotten how much she'd longed for Metis to needher.

"I never imagined," Metis continued, her voice wavering, "That someone might care enough to warp fate for me."

"After all you've done to help the princess, it was only fair someone do the same for you. Besides, it wasn't like I did it out of altruism."

"Then…?"

"I did it because I had to. Because I couldn't stand being without you." Her mouth twitched. "Predictable, huh?"

Metis folded her hands in her lap, clearly trying not to be overcome. "I…I would have done the same, in your position."

The lump returned. Aura swallowed, wetting her lips. "For the princess?"

"For you."

Even hearing the words, Aura could scarcely believe them, but she trusted Metis to at least mean them to be true. That was as much as she thought about it, because Metis was moistening her own lips, and this time when Aura stood, Metis rose to meet her halfway.

"The children are probably going to check in on us any minute," Metis said somewhat breathlessly while Aura rediscovered the warmth of her neck.

"We're not exactly a secret, are we?"

"No, but…" That was all Metis could say, as she seemed to be realizing the same thing Aura had a couple lives ago. They still had distance and problems to resolve, but when it came to this, there was no reason to resist, no worth in dancing around each other when death could claim them at any time.

Metis stroked Aura's hair, pressing Aura against her. It was all the invitation she needed.


End file.
